


Made of silver or gold

by sahina



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study-ish, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, yes this is another safe house fic no i will not acknowledge anything past season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahina/pseuds/sahina
Summary: “Don’t worry about it,” Jon says, voice soft in the way it is when the sun shines through the smudged glass of the kitchen window and bathes the room in gold.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	Made of silver or gold

It's a warm day for mid-September, late summer clinging on before it inevitably shifts into autumn. Martin is grateful to see the sun, usually hidden by heavy clouds, peek through. It thaws on the clump of ice in his chest that has lingered since The Lonely. He had been doing better, really, but he has always felt the chill from within when night bleeds into day and the sun is a rarity, so having one more day of overdue day sunshine only does him good.

Things have been… Settling down a little, coming to the safe house. It's been  _ calm  _ since he began to take to The Forsaken, the fire that had burned steadily since The Unknowing slowly becoming enveloped by the biting cold; he could still feel the heat, hear the crackling of it when all other sound died down, but through the ice it was muffled to the point of being bearable again. Now that his connection is mostly severed, the fire had threatened to overtake him, flowing through his veins and out his eyes. Jon had been at his side for the worst of it and despite it all, he'd remained there. The fire isn't out yet, and he doubts it will ever be, but it feels smaller. Like it's taking up less space, not spreading to the rest of him anymore, and for the first time for a long while he thinks he might be okay.

Jon does a lot of the cooking, these days. To his surprise, Jon is very capable in the kitchen, unlike himself. While he doesn’t make any elaborate dishes, they’re good and taste nothing like the pre-made meals he’d heat in the microwave of his kitchen that always felt too big for him. It’s his favourite thing about this new development, he thinks, watching Jon work with his hands as he cooks. He’s got elegant hands, long fingers, scarred almost beyond recognition, but bearing a certain beauty that tells of years and years of experiences. Martin wants to take his hands in his and trace every line, every scar, to map them out and learn them by heart. He thinks of all the poetry he’d write on the palm of his hand- not the burned one, because he’s seen how Jon flinches whenever it touches something, not out of pain but out of lack of sensation from damaged nerves- feather light, words only meant for the moment before leaving them behind.

“Martin?” Jon’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts. He shakes his head, attempting to rid himself of the previous fantasy he’s indulged in more than he’d care to admit.

“Yeah?” he meets Jon’s eyes, who’s turned around to hold out a knife for him to take. “Want me to do the vegetables?” taking a look at his hand, the slight tremor of it, Martin rises from his seat at the dining table to take it from him before he gets a reply.

“That’d be- Oh, does it hurt?” Jon interrupts himself as he spots Martin’s hand, which pauses mid air. His eyes follow Jon’s line of sight and sees the cracked skin on his knuckles, small wounds reopening where the skin is stretched over his joints. He clenches his fist, feeling the sting, before nodding once and taking the knife off Jon.

“Yeah, a bit. I have very dry hands this time of year and, uh…” he trails off, thumbing the handle of the knife. It’s a stark green, clashing horribly with the rest of the kitchen’s colour theme, but he also think it’s very Daisy. There is no unity in the interior design in the cottage, several different shades of green, not one like the other, alongside just about every other existing colour. Upon walking through the door when they first arrived he’d been reminded of something he’d read online years ago- that one’s surroundings tend to reflect their inner life, and this place spoke of internal turbulence to a sizeable degree. Which also doesn’t actually seem too out of character from what he’s learned of her.

He supposes it says a lot about them as well, having stayed there for nearly two weeks and despite the cheap second-hand store in the village they’ve only really managed to add to the mess. On the other hand, they did just escape from a fate considerably worse than the stained orange rug from what he thinks might be the 70s would suggest- uneven zigzag pattern and all. Although, not by much, because as he’s vocalised plenty of times, it has  _ got  _ to be the ugliest carpet he’s ever seen. 

“Martin?” hearing his name snaps him out of his thoughts again. He’s entirely too aware of his tendency to space out lately, feeling like he’s full of air and drifting away as soon as the moment allows for him to be take a step back.

“Sorry,” always quick to apologise, he straightens, daring himself to look Jon in the eye. “I wash my hands a lot, these days. You know how it is.” he doesn’t have to mention her name. They both know what he’s referring to; the horror of something burrowing into one’s skin and washing the  _ filth _ off one’s hands to prevent it from happening, even if it makes no sense. Trauma rarely does.

“I do know,” comes the response. Martin clears his throat and attempts a reassuring half-smile.

“Sorry,” he repeats.

Jon, wonderful Jon, who watches him with patience that wasn’t there even a few years ago; with the ghost of a smile tugging at his features. When he smiles he finally looks his age, Martin notes, as he does every time he’s privy to it, hair pulled out of his face in a loose braid and eyes crinkling at the edges. The dimple in his left cheek makes an appearance too, and for second, Martin is four years younger and witnessing it for the first time. He recalls, with great embarrassment, all the times he’s mentioned it in his poetry and promptly redirects his thoughts to the task at hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jon says, voice soft in the way it is when the sun shines through the smudged glass of the kitchen window and bathes the room in gold. The silver at his temples stand out beautifully, the poet in Martin observes. “Mind chopping up the carrots? I think four should be enough,”

“Yes. Yes, that sounds good,” he replies, a little distractedly. Jon, as it turns out, is distracting by just existing in his vicinity, but that’s an old revelation. It keeps re-entering his mind, as if there was a time he  _ wasn’t  _ distracted by Jonathan Sims. (There wasn't. Not even during the time fog lapped at his heels.)

Rinsing the already peeled carrots, he gets to work. The cuts on his knuckles ache underneath the water, and only when he accidentally graces his forehead with his fingers while brushing back his fringe does he realise he’s running cold water. He rinses the carrots again in lukewarm water, more out of principle than anything else. If he looks closely, he can see the indents in the vegetable from the ancient peeler, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets his fingers explore the surface for a moment, just to ground himself a bit.

Floating away is easy and not particularly something he wants to do when spending time with the person he loves, creating something out of love. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, he’s heard, never from his own mother, but he’s fairly certain that it’s a legitimate saying. It’s completely untrue, of course, because no one’s cooked for him before coming to Scotland and plenty of people have resided in his heart, but there is something about cooking together that becomes love.

“It smells delicious,” he finds himself proclaiming as the knife begins to move in his hands.

A huff of laughter, “You always say that,”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Martin teases.

“You do make a good point,” the smile, this time, is completely audible in his voice. Martin throws a glance over his shoulder to view Jon’s progress on the sizzling meat on the stove. It looks… Like meat, and that’s great. Really.

Making quick work of the carrots, he places the cutting board, with the unfortunately uneven chunks on it, next to where Jon’s hand is resting on the counter so he can just dump it in when it’s time. “Anything else you’d like me to do?” he asks, sneaking an arm around his waist. It’s always a wonder to see Jon leaning into physical closeness like it’s as easy as breathing when they both had to relearn how to touch like people again. It inspires hope, and, even more so, love.

“No, not right now. Thank you,” Jon exhales, tension leaving his body. His hand leaves the counter to reach back and cradle Martin’s cheek, scarred palm hesitating for a second to make contact as if Martin would ever not want it near him. He places his own hand on it and draws it to his face.

Closing his eyes, he finds that the fire burning the inside of his ribs has died down to a glow today, warming his insides. It’s not a rarity, when Jon helps smother it, but it never ceases to amaze him.  _ Jon _ never does.

Maybe nothing has actually changed; maybe the world will end with the two of them at the center of it, but until then, Martin finds that he can safely say that he’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! i have a tumblr @ mx-wayne where i don't shut up about tma


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